uesday 31/7/2018 marked the third anniversary of the arson attack launched against the Dawabsha family from the village of Duma in the northern West Bank city of Nablus at the hands of Israeli settlers, which led to the killing of Saad Dawabsha, his wife Reham and their infant son Ali, while their child Ahmad was seriously injured.

The 31 of July 2015 saw an ugly crime committed by settlers in the village of Duma in Nablus, where they burned the home of the Dawabsha family at night by Molotov cocktails.

That night, extremist Israeli settlers infiltrated into the village of Duma

under the cover of the night and set fire to the house of the Dawabsha family. The infant Ali was killed, and his parents and brother Ahmed were seriously injured. His father Saad died of injuries, while the death of his mother Reham came a month after the crime took place.

Parents Saad and Reham, and their infant Ali were killed due to severe burns while their four-year-old son, Ahmed, survived with up to 60% of his body suffering from burns.

Ahmed always runs towards his family’s burned house near his grandfather’s house, trying to enter it, but the doors are closed. His grandmother, Rehab says: “We do not allow him to enter the house, we do not want him to see the remains of the fire, his brother’s toy car, and what remained of his belongings.

He always asks about his brother’s toy car and his belongings. He always asks about his parents.”

“Ahmad has not yet started his cosmetic treatment journey. He needs about eight years from now. His first cosmetic surgery is set on August 8, 2018, the date of his father’s death,” Ahmad’s grandmother noted.

The family maintains its position of demanding the punishment of the killers of its members and bringing the Israeli government and army accountable because the settlers carried out the crime under their protection, as the family asserts.

The Dawabsha family brought two cases in the courts against the Israeli settlers and government; the first was against the settlers who planned and carried out the crime and it is being considered by the Central Court of Lod and a case of compensation against the Israeli government and army at the Nazareth District Court.

The court dropped the confessions of the second defendant on the grounds that his confessions were extracted under torture and his defense team demanded that he should be released and placed under house arrest because he was a minor at the time of arrest.

The court said that “the minor was not directly involved in the murder, but he had ideas and intent to kill and had already committed racially motivated crimes against the Palestinians.”

Although the Israeli public prosecution is preparing to appeal to the Supreme Court against the decision to release the minor, Nasr Dawabsha insists that the family has decided to boycott the Israeli judiciary, as the trial sessions are viewed as staged scenarios and exchanging roles between the institutions of the occupation state, which were never fair, and had never been just to the Palestinian people when it comes to the crimes committed by the occupation army and settler groups.

Putting end to more than 2 years under arrest, judge orders the unidentified minor, who was indicted for his involvement in a 2015 firebombing that claimed three Palestinian lives, to wear an electronic bracelet and not to leave Israel.

The Lod District Court ordered police Thursday morning to release a minor who was indicted for his involvement in a terror attack in which three members of the Dawabsheh family in the Palestinian village of Duma in 2015 were killed.

The teen, who was 17 at the time of the attack and who has been under arrest for more than two years, will be released and placed under full house arrest. He was indicted for conspiring to commit a murder but not of the murder itself. He was also indicted for a string of other unrelated crimes.

It is currently believed that the unnamed suspect did not take part in the actual firebombing but was involved in its planning. The Judge, Ami Kobo, ruled that the teenager would be placed under permanent supervised house arrest and would be obliged to wear an electronic bracelet. The defendant will also be forbidden from leaving Israel. On July 31, 2015, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Dawabsheh family's house in the village in the northern West Bank, killing an 18-month-old child, Ali, and critically wounded a four-year-old brother and both parents. The parents, Saad and Riham Dawabsheh later succumbed to their wounds.

While Kobo will not participate in the final verdict, he argued during discussions on the matter that the evidence against the teenager relating to the indictments served against him in the murder of the family was weakened, as was the evidence implicating him in an arson attack on a church. Regarding his membership in a terror organization, however, Kobo said that the evidence remains robust.Hussein Dawabsheh, the grandfather of the baby who was killed in the attack expressed his outrage at the decision. “We have gone through a tough day. I feel like I did on the same day I saw Ali burned. He should stay in prison for his whole life,” he said, vowing to take the matter to the Supreme Court.

Almost a month ago, the Lod District Court ruled that the majority of confessions given by the two alleged Jewish terrorists are admissible, bar those which were obtained under duress or by “special means” by the Shin Bet. Another confession given by the minor on Duma “hypothetically”—without mentioning of names, but with a general description of the act—will also remain admissible. All of the other confessions he provided were disqualified, even if there was no force involved in their extraction.

In January 2016 an indictment was submitted against the central defendant in the case, Amiram Ben-Uliel, a resident of an outpost near Shila who at the time of the attack was 21 years old.

Ben-Uliel stands accused of three counts of murder in the firebombing and two counts of attempted murder, arson, and conspiracy to commit a racially-motivated crime.The Central District Court said last month that it would consider a request to release the minor. Lawyers representing him asked the court to consider granting him release after the Lod District Court ruled days before on the inadmissability of the some of the confessions given in the Shin Bet-led investigation.

Discussions on the release of one of the two Jewish terror suspects in the 2015 firebombing that left 3 members of a Palestinian family dead to be held Sunday, days after court ruled that some of the defendant’s confessions were obtained under duress.

The Central District Court will consider Sunday a request to release a defendant who played a role in the 2015 attack carried out by suspected Jewish terrorists which left three members of the Dawabsheh family in the Palestinian village of Duma dead.

Lawyers representing the defendant, who was 17 at the time of the attack, asked the court to consider granting him release after the Lod District Court ruled Tuesday that confessions given by him in the Shin Bet-led investigation that were obtained under duress were not admissible in the ongoing trial.

On July 31, 2015, Molotov cocktails were thrown at the Dawabsheh family's house in the village in the northern West Bank, killing an 18-month-old child, Ali, and critically wounded a four-year-old brother and both parents. The parents, Saad and Riham Dawabsheh later succumbed to their wounds. According to the lawyers representing the defendant, whose identity remains under a gag order, the Supreme Court decided a month and a half ago that the Probation Service would produce a report on the matter to examine the validity of releasing him. The legal teams are expecting the court to acquiesce to their demands that he be released. The Lod District Court ruled on Tuesday that the majority of confessions given by the two alleged Jewish terrorists, are admissible, bar those which were obtained under duress or by “special means.” The publication of further details on the precise meaning of “special means” has been subjected to a gag order but the central defendant’s confession and reconstruction of the attack has been deemed admissible by the court. While only one of his confessions was thrown out, the evidence against him remains robust.

Matters are considered more complex for the second defendant. A ruse used to get him to talk will remain admissible (he confessed to charges that are unrelated to the Duma incident, such as arson of a church and membership in a terror organization).

Another confession given by the minor on Duma “hypothetically”—without mentioning of names, but with a general description of the act—will also remain admissible. All of the other confessions he provided were disqualified, even if there was no force involved in their extraction.

The minor also stands accused of conspiring to commit a murder but not of the murder itself. It is currently believed that in the end, the unnamed suspect did not take part in the actual firebombing but was involved in its planning. The lawyer representing the minor, Zion Amir, said that he believed his client would be released shortly from his arrest after two years in custody.

Survivors from the Dawabsha family, who were burned to death in their bed by right-wing Israeli settlers in 2015, have vowed to take a case to the International Court, after an Israeli court decided to throw out the confessions of two of the perpetrators.

On July 31st, 2015, extremist Israeli settlers infiltrated the village of Douma, south of Nablus in the northern part of the West Bank, under cover of darkness, to firebomb the Dawabshas’ home, where the family of four were asleep in their beds.

The father Saad, 32, mother Reham, 27, and 18-month-old Ali were burned to death, while 4-year old Ahmad suffered from 3rd degree burns over most of his body.

The baby, 18-month old Ali, was declared dead at the scene. Both parents were still alive when medics arrived on the scene, and were rushed to the hospital. After seven days, medics announced the death of the father, whereas the mother died two months later.

Local resident Mesalem Dawabsha, aged 23, said he saw four Israeli settlers fleeing the scene, with several local residents following in pursuit. According to Dawabsha, the settlers fled toward the illegal Israeli settlement colony of Ma’aleh Ephraim, constructed on illegally seized Palestinian land taken from the village of Douma.

Dawabsha added that other witnesses saw the settlers smash the windows of the house before throwing firebombs inside.

Two suspects were indicted for murder, over the incident, in January 2016. Now, two years later, both suspects are likely to be released without charges following Wednesday’s ruling.

The indictment named Amiram Ben-Uliel, a 21-year-old West Bank settler, as the main suspect in the attack. A minor was charged as an accessory. Yinon Reuveni, 20, and another minor were charged for other violence against Palestinians. All four were charged with belonging to a terrorist organization.

The indictment said Ben-Uliel admitted to spraying graffiti on the Dawabsha family home and, then, tossing a firebomb through a bedroom window before fleeing the scene. Ben-Uliel’s parents said they believe in his innocence and that he was tortured during interrogation.

His lawyer says his client told him that he gave a forced confession after interrogators deprived him of sleep and tied him upside down by his feet. But there was no medical documentation backing that claim, or any evidence beyond the word of the youth.

On Wednesday, an Israeli court agreed with the family’s assertion – despite a lack of any physical evidence that the right-wing Israeli militia member had been subjected to any torture. As a result, legal experts say, the charges against the young militia member will likely be dropped.

For years, Palestinians watched angrily as the case remained unsolved, intensifying a feeling of skewed justice in the occupied territory, where suspected Palestinian militants are prosecuted under a separate system of military law that gives them few rights. The arson also touched on Palestinian fears of extremist Jewish settlers, who have attacked Palestinian property with impunity.

The Israeli security service (Shin Bet) said in 2016 that the suspects admitted to carrying out the Douma attack, claiming it was in retaliation for the killing of an Israeli settler by Palestinians a month earlier.

It said all the suspects were part of a group of extremists that had carried out a series of attacks over the years in a religiously inspired campaign to undermine the government and sow fear among non-Jews.

At the time, Nasser Dawabsha, Saad’s brother, said, “It’s clear the Israeli institutions are not serious. It’s clear there was an organization behind this crime, even the media knows that. And the government was not serious in preventing it and is not serious in pursuing the killers.”

Right-wing Zionist extremists have for years vandalized or set fire to Palestinian property, as well as mosques, churches, the offices of dovish Israeli groups and even Israeli military bases. The so-called “price tag” attacks seek to exact a cost for Israeli steps seen as favoring the Palestinians.

The extremists are part of a movement known as the “hilltop youth,” a leaderless group of young people who set up unauthorized outposts, usually clusters of trailers, on West Bank hilltops, that are then turned into Israeli settlement colonies that are claimed as part of the Israeli state.

The Douma attack was one of the main reasons for the wave of protests and attacks by Palestinians against Israelis in 2016, during which 140 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces, and 22 Israeli settlers and soldiers were killed.

Nasr Dawabsheh, the family’s spokesperson and the brother of Saad, said after the court ruling Wednesday that if the Israeli legal system fails to provide justice, the family will seek justice in the International Court of Justice.

“We are continuing to pursue the case before the Israeli courts, and in case all legal procedures fail, we will go to the international judiciary. On the third day after the arson, we pursued the option of international justice through the Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The response was that if all the methods fail, we can go to international courts.”